Mingzhu City, atop the watchtower.
Zhang Ping and Liu Sishan stood together, both watching the three Heavenly Foxes walking down the distant street.
"Sisi, are we just here to watch the Heavenly Foxes kill people?" Zhang Ping asked Liu Sishan with a frown.
Liu Sishan kept her gaze on the Heavenly Foxes and said calmly, "Keep watching."
The three Heavenly Foxes thought they were walking down the street, but they had actually turned into the arena plaza.
Only then did Zhang Ping notice Jin Bo and the others following behind the three Heavenly Foxes.
He immediately realized they were members of the Cleanup Team.
Thanks to Wind Whisperer, he knew the names and abilities of most Cleanup Team members, but he had never met them, so he could not match the names to their faces.
Only after they revealed their abilities could he connect their names with the people themselves.
"You're going after those three Heavenly Foxes?" Zhang Ping guessed.
Liu Sishan shook her head. "No. This is only a test. The Prince Yue you mentioned before is the real priority. We need all the information we can get on Prince Yue."
"You want to lure him into attacking, but will he come?" Zhang Ping looked toward the distant City Lord's Manor.
The Heavenly Foxes had all retreated into the City Lord's Manor, waiting for the Mutated Beasts to invade. Their goal was to throw Mingzhu City into chaos first.
Once all the powerful humans had made their move, they would wipe out those powerhouses in one fell swoop.
What they needed were not wild beasts, but livestock!
Liu Sishan said indifferently, "It doesn't matter. If he doesn't come, then he doesn't come."
If he did not come.
Then those three Heavenly Foxes would undoubtedly die.
If he came.
He might not be able to save them either.
Activating the Illusory Light Curtain had multiple purposes. One of them was to trap the Heavenly Foxes to death. As long as they dared to come out, they would kill however many came.
Although this was only a temporary solution, and it would become useless the moment the Moon King awakened, it was at least useful for now.
The battle was about to begin.
Golden lightning patterns appeared all over Jin Bo's body, while all his hair stood on end and gleamed with golden light.
"Wow, a Super Saiyan!"
Zhang Ping was astonished when he saw this.
It was his first time witnessing Jin Bo fight in person. Although he had learned quite a bit about Jin Bo through Wind Whisperer, there was still an enormous difference between hearing about it and seeing it for himself.
Jin Bo's ability was called Golden Blood.
This ability gave his blood a wide variety of uses, and this transformation was one of them.
Besides that, his blood was also rich in vitality. It could rapidly heal wounds, grant immunity to most toxins, and with enough blood, even restore an elderly person to youth.
He had almost no weaknesses.
The only enemies capable of killing him were those of a higher Level.
He moved.
Jin Bo's muscles swelled all over his body, the golden patterns resembling real lightning. He took one step forward and threw a full-force punch at his target.
Moon One reacted the fastest to the attack.
The instant Jin Bo approached, it turned around, but it saw nothing. The Illusory Light Curtain blocked its vision.
However, the moment Jin Bo's fist broke through the curtain, its hands flashed before its body. Then it was sent flying dozens of meters by a single punch. Its body slammed heavily into the arena's concrete, forcibly turning the "mouth"-shaped arena into a concave shape.
As Jin Bo launched his attack, the other two Cleanup Team combatants struck in Synchronization.
Moon Two and Moon Three were even more unfortunate than Moon One.
The ones attacking them were combatant Lu Han and combatant Ding Chen.
Ding Chen's ability was cutting light, an extremely pure offensive ability.
His eyes could fire icy blue rays. Those rays carried no heat whatsoever, but possessed terrifying cutting power.
Lu Han's ability was psionic control.
He naturally generated psionic energy within his body. He could manipulate this energy with his will, and when it adhered to weapons, it could greatly enhance their fundamental qualities. He could even remotely control flying swords and play at being a sword immortal.
Both were Awakened with high offense and low defense.
Caught off guard, Moon Two directly lost an arm, while one of its eyes was blinded as well.
Its arm had been struck by the light from Ding Chen's right eye, while its blinded eye had been hit by the light from his left. If it had not turned its head aside at the last moment, it would not have merely lost an eye—its head would have been pierced through in an instant.
Meanwhile, Moon Three had a deep bloody gash cut across its chest by Lu Han. It fell straight to the ground, taking more breaths out than in, not far from death.
Roar!
When Moon One saw this, it immediately let out an enraged roar.
The three humans were all covered by a curtain. In Moon One's eyes, they did not appear human, but as three powerful White Apes.
If its opponents had been humans, it would definitely have tried to disrupt them with words. But against fellow Mutated Beasts, it could only rely on strength.
"End this quickly!"
Jin Bo did not speak. He made a gesture toward the other two, then charged at Moon One.
The moment they closed in, both threw punches at each other's heads. Moon One stood three and a half meters tall with arms two meters long, so it clearly held the advantage.
The problem was that what it saw was a false Jin Bo.
In its eyes, Jin Bo was a three-meter-tall White Giant Ape. Therefore, it attacked at a height of around three meters above the ground, but Jin Bo was nowhere near that tall. Moon One's punch missed.
Then Jin Bo's fist struck its jaw. Its teeth shattered instantly, and its body was launched into the air.
The rest of the battle held no suspense.
One mistake led to mistake after mistake.
Jin Bo threw punches like a madman, as if he wanted to vent all the anger he had accumulated during this time onto Moon One. Moon One's arms were broken, its internal organs pulverized, and every part of its body had been battered.
"It's here. Retreat!"
At that moment, the member responsible for covering them spoke.
Jin Bo gave the unconscious Moon One one last look, then stomped its head apart and immediately turned to leave.
All the Cleanup Team members had their bodies concealed by curtains, and in the blink of an eye, they vanished beyond the plaza.
"So strong!"
Zhang Ping stared at the plaza, deeply shaken.
The entire arena plaza looked as if it had been bombarded by artillery more than a dozen times. The three Heavenly Fox Corpses were even more ghastly. This time, Jin Bo and the others had deliberately not taken the bodies with them.
"It seems we overestimated the Heavenly Foxes' strength," Liu Sishan said.
They had originally thought that Jin Bo and the others would face a hard battle against opponents of the same Level. Instead, the Heavenly Foxes had been instantly killed.
"No. They simply weren't willing to tear off the human skin on their foreheads. Once they tear it off, they won't be so easy to deal with," Zhang Ping said.
Through Wind Whisperer, he knew that the human skin attached to the Heavenly Foxes' foreheads was actually one of the conditions needed to activate their abilities.
As long as the human skin remained on their foreheads, it meant they were still maintaining their abilities. This was actually a form of self-weakening. If they tore off the skin and completely unleashed their abilities, they would not be nearly so easy to fight.
At that point, the battle would become extremely bizarre, essentially turning into a pure battle of illusions.
After all, the Heavenly Foxes were psychic Mutated Beasts. Close combat had never been their specialty.
As Zhang Ping spoke, Prince Yue suddenly descended from the sky and landed directly in the arena plaza.
In fact, Prince Yue had sensed the fluctuations of battle the moment Jin Bo fought Moon One and the others, but he had been unable to locate the exact battlefield.
He had already flown into the air, but when he looked down from above, he could not find the battlefield.
It was not until Moon Two and Moon Three were killed that he locked onto the location by the scent of blood.
But clearly, he was too late.
Prince Yue stood among the three Corpses, and his aura became utterly terrifying.
In the distance, Zhang Ping was about to use the Appraisal Technique when a terrifying premonition suddenly rose within him. He even vaguely seemed to see an image: the moment he used the Appraisal Technique, his head would be smashed apart by a tail in the next second.
"I can't use the Appraisal Technique!"
Zhang Ping clenched his fists tightly, his forehead covered in sweat.
"What's wrong?" Liu Sishan looked at Zhang Ping and asked.
Zhang Ping gritted his teeth. "My ability will alert him. Unless someone holds him back, I'll die."
"..."
Liu Sishan frowned slightly. They were more than a thousand meters away from Prince Yue, and even that was not safe?
On the other side, Prince Yue's aura grew increasingly terrifying. Suddenly, a hand grabbed his ankle. He immediately crouched down and looked at Moon Three. Blood was still flowing from Moon Three's chest as it opened its mouth.
"Don't speak. I'll heal you." Prince Yue wanted to tear off the human skin on his forehead.
But Moon Three stopped him. The Moon King was asleep now. If Prince Yue tore off the human skin, he would be exposed. Without the Moon King's power strengthening him, no matter how powerful Prince Yue was, he could not withstand a human siege.
"White Apes... The ones who attacked... us... were the White Ape clan." Moon Three panted, stubbornly forcing out the last of its words.
Once it finished speaking, its eyes gradually dimmed and its aura vanished completely.
White Apes?
Prince Yue had thought they were humans, but they were White Apes?
He doubted Moon Three's words, but Moon Three had held on until he arrived. It could not possibly have given him false information.
The Heavenly Foxes themselves were psychic Mutated Beasts with extremely high resistance to illusions and hypnosis. He did not believe any enemy could have hypnotized Moon Three.
Had a White Ape clan entered Mingzhu City?
Prince Yue pondered it, feeling that something was wrong.
Meanwhile, Zhang Ping and Liu Sishan came down from the watchtower. Liu Sishan led him toward the outskirts of the city.
"Sisi, where are we going?" Zhang Ping quickened his pace and caught up with Liu Sishan.
As she walked, Liu Sishan answered, "The curtain can only last for one week at most. We only have one week. We must find a way to determine Prince Yue's strength. I don't know how strong you need to be before you can use your ability on Prince Yue, but your current Level is clearly too low."
"So?" Zhang Ping asked in confusion.
Liu Sishan said calmly, "The fastest way for an Awakened to level up is through battle. So for the next five days, I'll take you through combat training. We'll spend the remaining day returning and looking for an opportunity to confirm Prince Yue's ability. I hope you'll have grown to that point by then."
"Can I not go?" Zhang Ping asked, somewhat reluctant.
Liu Sishan replied, "You can. But the next time a Heavenly Fox targets you, I won't save you again."
"Fine. I'll go."
What else could Zhang Ping say? Although he was reluctant, his resistance was not particularly firm.
Then he thought of Iron Soul and Beast King Fist Hall and asked, "What about my work at Iron Soul and my classes at Beast King Fist Hall?"
"I already had Wang Jieming request leave for you," Liu Sishan answered.
In truth, Zhang Ping did not reject any method that could increase his strength. He simply did not want to hand the initiative of his training over to Liu Sishan. After all, Liu Sishan did not know his specific circumstances, and the battles she arranged might not help him much.
But with things having reached this point, Zhang Ping could only follow Liu Sishan out of the city.